Frozen Love (A Castle Fanfiction)

Back to the Starting Line

For the first time since the accident, I lifted myself out from the bed for a reason other than to sooth my squealing son. Castle was completely out of the wheelchair now, and was able to walk (with a noticeable limp and a cane). His right hand was still in the soft cast during the night after he unintentionally slept on it wrong and worked the healing muscle into being set back a weak in therapy. Aside from the gap of time he lost when he was at the hospital, there hadn't been any other troubles with his memory. He was perfectly fine and now, two months later, he was ready to come back to the office with me.

He was completely dressed and coddling B while I finished up my hair. Wearing clothes that hid the bit of baby weight I had left to lose and makeup that made my eyes a major focal point to distract as well, I felt as though I was doing a good job of hiding my mom-like appearance. About the only difference that I couldn't hide with my clothes was the entire cup size of breast growth that Brayden had brought on. Castle repeatedly told me that this was a good thing, but none of my clothes fit the same way. To be honest, I wished I could go back down to my original size, but according to my Aunt, no one in my family ever did.

Ryan and Esposito had relayed a message to me from Gates that said "due to my accident, today will be a lot of paperwork and recertification and psychiatric clearance". I already had to be cleared physically, and for some reason they felt the need to add emotional clearance on to a non-work-related incident. I didn't mind though. It gave me the chance to do exactly what I wanted to do today. Brayden was coming in for a little tour of my work place. That is, he'd be there until Gates kicked Castle out since he wasn't fully recovered.

When I came out, I had assumed I'd be seeing my two boys sitting on the couch, one wide awake with his hazel (for now) eyes opened and smiling and the other making some strange face that he could only make while he was half asleep. However, I didn't expect to see my son in a black Star Wars onesy with a black hat on that looked like Darth Vader's helmet. I didn't even know Castle had bought that hat. I guess that's what I get for making him go out with the boys so that Alexis and I could have a girls' night with Martha and we could talk about the graduation party Alexis was planning in the Hamptons.

Rick came out of his state shortly after I arrived and just looked at me a moment. There was some kind of a twinge of pain in his smile as though he were battling a conflicting thought. Eventually he commented, "You really are a cop, huh?"

I squinted and answered, "Of course I am, Castle. I've always been a cop."

"Yeah, I know," he replied with a longing reversed frown.

Seeing him this way, I asked, "What's wrong, Castle?"

He sighed. After bringing B to his shoulder and standing, he answered, "Nothing, Kate. I just- I think I've almost lost you one too many times this year, that's all." I knew what he meant. I felt the same way every time I looked at Brayden and thought about how many times I'd taken myself into dangerous situations and how many times Castle had followed me. After the crash, I was actually happy he wasn't coming to work with me. I loved him to death and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but if anything were to happen while we were working, I wouldn't want Brayden to lose both of his parents.

This was a topic Rick and I had talked about endlessly as this day approached. For a while, we didn't touch it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about the fact that I was still possibly being hunted by whoever shot me. We didn't want to think about the possibility of the worst outcome, but eventually we had broken down the walls. About five days ago, we'd finally come to the point where we had to pointedly talk about the risks of our deaths.

"Castle, we need to talk," I told him, still sitting on the bar stool while Brayden slept in his basinet in the front room, mere feet away from me.